Monday, February 17, 2014

NMIMS is a good management institute located in Ville Parle , Mumbai. The process for the Admission to their flagship course includes registering for their exam NMAT during september of the previous year , appearing for the exam , raw scores announcements , scaled scores in january and appearing for the CD-PI (Case-Discussion - Personal-Interview) rounds in Mumbai itself.

Previous night , I had a practice telephonic interview with my guide. He asked me some relevant questions to my profile and father's business which I should be fluent with. So post-tele-interview I started reading about the questions online and it was nearly 2.00am searching various linked links.Woke up a bit late and reached ville-parle in the morning.I was not getting a single auto from parla to NM and so walked all the way. Reached the venue 45 minutes late.Registered myself with the group leader (I was the last one) ! Just as i registered , she (leader) told our whole group to follow her to the CD (Case discussion) room. We were around 12 people in the group and unlike IMT , this time I was positioned at number 7.
So in the CD room , I was exactly in the middle and both the sides were open for a 180 view to get more impact while presenting the points.

Case statement : Gujarat (132) , Delhi (39) , Maharashtra (452) , Andhra pradesh (568) , Rajasthan (46) and all states were given. The number in the bracket indicates the number of engineering colleges in that state. The detailed description was given and there were two options :
(1) Shut down the low quality education colleges in the state
(2) Create more employment opportunities so that every student of all colleges gets placed
You are the education minister of your state. Take actions.

I noted some good points where i can make a good entry. No. 3 participant started with a very vague point , I don't even remember what he said but it was not worth to hear. And the usual process went on. Someone cut him and started opposing , a third one cut him and started opposing !
After a minute or so , I was able to get attention while raising my voice. Started with the point that : If you look sincerely at the case statement , it is mentioned that you are the education minister of YOUR state. Being a minister on gujarat state , I would first set up a committee to find out the core reasons of quality degradation. Continued the point uptill 20-25 seconds to which everyone was listening good. And the point got noted too (I had observed). After my completion , again No. 3 came up with some irrelevant point as in India should adopt a China education model , which he didn't knew what was as he couldn't asnwer a counter question on it. A clear loosing candidate.Few good points came up afterwards and i entered 5-6 times with a new perspective regarding managing seats as per the geographical locations i.e. boost IT-CE seats in karnataka , increase textile and chemical seats in gujarat , petroleum seats near orrisa etc. The last 5 minutes , everyone concluded good except no 3 because he was creating a chaos.I gave examples on the line of Vibrant gujarat , MOUs signed and creation of employment as a result.

I knew it went good as 3 of the students in the lift told me that you were good and introduced themselves(One NITian , other 2 bombay localites). Waited for 45 minutes for my PI turn.

M : Afternoon Sir , afternoon ma'am. Kept the file on the table.
P2 : Afternoon mitesh , so what is the meaning of your name ?
M : Sir a name necessarily doesn't possess a meaning everytime. Its a general noun just like hitesh , jitesh , mitesh , which do not have any meaning unless you break it.
P2 : Smiled
P3 : Okay so mitesh , tell me 2 incidents of your life which has been able to make you what you are right now.
M : Described two incidents looking at all their faces as it was a general question
P3 : Seemed satisfied. So mitesh , do you read ?
M : Ma'am if you are talking about novels , i've read only a few of them which my scientist at PRL suggested me , but I do go through a lot of online material.
P3 : What about Music ?
M : Yes ma'am i am interested into music specially EDM .
P3 : You mean electronic dance music right ?
M : Exactly
P3 : So who do you follow and what is the current industry scenario right now
M : Described about deadmau5 , charts , grossings , their incomes and their career development. Described the EDM scenario in LA , USA and the happenings in India.
P3 : So you seem much interested , i am sure you would have visited sunburn this time.
M : It was scheduled 26-27-28 this time and I had my XAT , the next week so I couldn't make it this time.
(I was kinda bored as to why was she asking all these stuff)
P3 : So if we select you for NM , would you go to the event next december.
M : It depends on the situation at that time.While I was coming to NM today morning from Borivalli , today's TOI said that LEO's should always be given a try , they never disappoint you on any front !

All of them laughed loudly

P3 : towards P2 , I am done.

And then the disaster happened.

P2 : Mitesh , what was your major ?
M : E & C Sir
P2 : So what is a P-N Junction diode (1st year engineering).
M : Sir i only remember its name and nothing else , i would not bluff here. I dont know.
P2 : But you also worked in electronics.
M : Yes sir , i've worked in semiconductors but mostly its digital
P2 : So lets get into digital then
P2 : I'll give you a process , you just name them :
He described me a long connection as in the first stage , second stage and the third stage. Name them.
I could not get what was he trying to say , so i asked him to get somewhat more into details. Still I was not able to get him but i knew the third stage was Monitor.
M : Sir the first one is Design but i do not know the NAME specific to it. The third is Monitor.
P2 : Gave me the names , but this was no where digital.

The whole process was closely observed by P3 and i guess i have lost marks here !

P1 : Tell us everything about your work-ex.
M : told everything
P1 : Why MBA now after 3 years of experience. You could easily earn what a manager earns post MBA in these two years and no fee losses too !
M : Sir there are a lot of aspects why i want to do an MBA. The top reasons include fast scaling the corporate ladder , interest in machine learning and technical decision making techniques (which cannot be learned in a paid tution class) , peer learning and network among the top firms of the world. Explained the process as "why now" with : the people who joined the industry during a boom had their career at peak in a very short span of time while those who graduated during the slowdown/crisis period had difficulties in their career (gave examples of a student who passed iim-a during 2008 crisis and his current position and a person who graduated during the dotcom boom). The discussion went on with the points that if Mr Modi becomes the PM , the economy would improve and that would be a very good period to graduate in 2016. The discussion went on for few minutes on why the economy would improve if modi arrives but that was really long.
P1 : Quickly , tell us 3 things , which you learned from the industry uptill now
M : mentioned 1 and 2 immediately and took a bit long to get the 3rd one.
P2 : Started grilling me on my father's business. I told him about the whole trackline i wanted to follow during the next 10 years but somehow he was purposely going the other side.
To answer him good , I mentioned about the e-commerce prospects in India post 2009.
M : Sir i saw a lot of potential in the e-comm , how huge flipkart and myntra have grown. In the same line of thought , I had made a attempt to get online in footwear. Gave him a link writing it on the paper.
That was my website (Monica is my engineering classmate and she made me this free website in just a matter of 4-5 hours which came a lot in handy during that time).

P3 at once checked it in her tablet.
She showed it to everyone else and I cut them while showing.

M : Sir , these are the best sellers and I just wanted to see if it works , but my efforts were not that fruitful. Got only 3 queries in a matter of 4 months.
P2 : No but atleast you got something and all startups work this way. It is a very good initiative.

P2 : Mitesh , I am really getting hungry for the lunch , so final question , how would you develop your business so that you can grow it into an industry ?
M : Described about getting online and getting into e-commerce rather than manufacturing and production based industry. Targeting only tier 3 and 4 cities first and some farting here and there about the market penetration and stuff. Okay mitesh , we are done. P

P2 made a handshake and smiled.

Results : In march

Lets hope positive.

It was a friday , and i was in bombay. Jatin and his gf came up and we went to pop tate's andheri , saki naka.Got drunk like anything , for good for bad , dont know but a nice overall day :)

I guess after this they must be sure that you must from Kathiyawad and specific Junagardh..Hahahaha.. :) Enjoy the NM. .This interview seems lot more similar like your damm awesome status of FB...I am proud of you dear Dave....